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In the fall of 2008, during the first semester of my freshman year here at Haverford, I started working in Special Collections with Digital Collections Librarian David Conners to finish the Cope Evans project. Started in 2002, the project was to digitize the Cope Evans Family Papers collection in order to make each item available on the web. This involved reading, scanning, and transcribing almost 3,000 items dating from the 18th to the 20th century. I had very little knowledge of the Society of Friends before coming to Haverford, and working with this collection of papers was a great way for me to really understand the essence of Quakerism.

At the culmination of the project in the spring of 2009, an event was organized to unveil the work that all of the students, interns, fellows, and librarians had been doing for the project. Members of the Cope and Evans families were invited, as well as other members of the community, and anyone who had worked on the project in the past. I spoke on the student panel at the event, and wrote a couple of pieces about some themes that arose from the letters, which were the compiled into a booklet about the collection.

Currently, I am working with Manuscripts Librarian and College Archivist Diana Franzusoff Peterson as the student archivist. I plan to major in Anthropology with a minor in Spanish. I also study Arabic, and plan to spend my junior year abroad in Egypt.

The Cope Evans Family Papers are now available online in Triptych, the Tri-College digital library. The collection contains almost 3,000 letters, photographs, and business documents of the closely related Quaker families of Cope and Evans of Germantown, Pennsylvania, written between 1732-1911. Letters discuss family, friends and home life, reflecting the social environment of these Quaker families. Other topics to be found within the letters include local history, Haverford history, travels in Europe, education, illness and death, health concerns, and discussions of national events such as the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln and McKinley.

Students working in Special Collections this summer have published online 1,100 letters from the Cope Evans Family Papers, beating their goal by over 100 letters. In addition to scanning, the students researched genealogical information about the people mentioned in the letters, and cataloged the letters before posting them to Triptych, the Tri-College Digital Library. The team consisted of (from left-to-right) Luke Mueller, MLS graduate student at Drexel University; Hannah Lonky, HC ’10 history major; Sara Bornstein, HC ’09 history major; and Mara Miller, HC ’10 classics major.

While working with the Cope Evans family papers, Special Collections student worker Thea Hogarth recently came upon a surprising letter. Written by Clementine Cope over a span of days in April 1865, the personal letter covers many topics including education, the weather, …and the assassination of the President Lincoln. On pages three and four, Clementine chronicles her reaction to the “the presidents dreadful death, wh. seemed dreadful enough to strike every one dumb with horror & astonishment.” The letter can be seen in Triptych: the tri-college digital library. A transcription can be seen by choosing “page and text” from the view drop down menu and the clicking the go button.